


Judgement Day

by shafau



Series: Stuff and Things [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: M/M, MTMTE, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 20:47:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/777823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shafau/pseuds/shafau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Judgement Day' + Failgate, requested by Alba Aulbath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Judgement Day

Tailgate isn't sure what to think anymore. 

Decepticon.

Autobot.

It's all so... complicated.

That's to be expected, he supposes. Six million years is a long time to catch up on. But is it really so wrong to wish things were a little more clear cut?

The things Cyclonus told him; the things Rewind showed him. What he saw on Temptoria; what he he's seeing now on the WAP.

None of it matches up. Sure, things will look different from different perspectives - but _this_ different?

He's not even entirely sure what those two words mean, now.

Well, no, that's not entirely true. He's pretty sure he knows the exact legal definition of 'Autobot', thanks to Ultra Magnus' determined tutelage. But that's not quite the same as knowing what it means to _be_ an Autobot.

Or a Decepticon. He thought he'd gotten a handle on what 'Decepticon' meant, thanks to Rodimus and Rewind. They were dangerous and brutal, something to be feared.

But then the WAP happened.

Fulcrum happened.

It changed everything.

Because honestly, there are Autobots on the Lost Light that he finds far more scary than the crew of the WAP. Whirl; Brainstorm; Atomizer. Even Chromedome, sometimes.

I mean, he gets it, he does - few people can have been at war for so long, been through so much, without it changing them to some degree. But there's a certain _relish_ there for the fighting, for the killing, that unsettles him deeply, that makes him want to keep his distance.

After Rewind's footage, after Temptoria... he'd begun to believe that that's how Decepticons were.

But then he'd ended up on the WAP.

He'd met Fulcrum.

And to say that they were not at all what he was expecting... well.

He'd been scared of them all at first - of course he was! He'd been abruptly cut off from everything familiar, everyone he knew, and dumped in deep space on a ship full of strangers. Again. But it very quickly became apparent that these strangers... these were people, too. Not the soulless monsters from Rewind's tapes. Okay, not the heroic champions of social justice that Cyclonus had talked about, either, but - real people. Just like his friends on the Lost Light.

There'd been a lot of scowling, of course, and a lot of macho posturing when he came onboard. A few attempted shootings, too. But there'd also been the camaraderie, and the jokes, and the air of fond exasperation from the rest of them when Misfire decided someone needed to be pranked. No movie night, but Krok's war stories at the end of the day were almost as good.

Yeah. Not really that different from the Lost Light, all things considered.

Misfire reminds him a lot of Swerve. He's cheeky, always talking, always looking for the next joke. Crankcase's surliness might be off-putting at times, but hey, he's roomed with Cyclonus - he can cope with Crankcase. Spinister is... okay, Spinister is nothing like Ratchet or First Aid, and the idea of letting him perform surgery is frankly terrifying. But the rapt attention and childish delight on his face when listening to Krok's stories went a good way to softening his opinion of him.

He wishes Rewind and Ultra Magnus could meet Krok. The stories from the other side of the war would fascinate the archivist. And Ultra Magnus - he thinks even Ultra Magnus couldn't fail to be impressed by Krok's ability to maintain order among his unruly crew, and his dedication to his missing unit. He thinks there's a lot of the spirit of the Autobot code there, even if the wording and application are vastly different. He thinks Ultra Magnus would respect that.

And then there's Fulcrum.

He remembers the K-Class, from Rewind's little war primer. Zealots, the lot of them, the footage had said, with a hatred and lust for destruction so great that they would joyfully kamikaze themselves at the merest nod from Megatron.

That's not Fulcrum. That's nothing _like_ Fulcrum. It's pretty much impossible to reconcile 'bloodthirsty war machine' with a mech who actually shrieked out loud that time the WAP's thrusters backfired.

Fulcrum is... Fulcrum is incredible. He's been through hell, and where others have become hard, or bitter, or angry beyond belief, he's... not. He's timid, sure, but underneath that, he's funny and kind, and still has a sort of wide-eyed wonder at how marvellous the universe can be. He's seen him slipping parts of his ration to Grimlock, the large maw snuffling the tidbits from his palm as he pets him fondly.

It's nice, too, to have someone else occasionally be as lost as he is. "Who are Squadron X?" he'd whisper to him during Krok's stories, and Fulcrum would shake his head, looking just as perplexed before raising his hand and asking Krok to explain. It takes the pressure off, to have someone else asking the questions for once.

It's also nice how, as they all shuffle out of the common room after the stories have ended, Fulcrum has started to hang back, waiting for him. They'll exchange shy smiles before Fulcrum offers to walk him back to his quarters. It's really not far - the WAP is a small ship - but they seem to have made a game out of how slowly they can dawdle their way there before they have to pause at the door to say their goodbyes. It might be his imagination, but there seems to be a growing feeling of expectancy in these moments, a reluctance to part - each of them waiting for something, some imperceptible sign from the other.

It's entirely possible that Tailgate's developed a little bit of a crush on him.

A crush, on a K-Class Decepticon.

He wonders what else the footage might have been wrong about.

He wonders what else _he_ might have been wrong about.

He isn't sure what to think anymore. He's just an old-fashioned sluicer, and this is all way beyond him.

But... when judgment day eventually comes, he thinks that perhaps the choice of badge won't matter all that much. There are far more important things to weigh up at the end, and really, there's good and bad to both sides.

He reaches for the bronze-coloured mech's hand, squeezes it, and gets an embarrassed grin in return. 

He thinks that this time, the good definitely outweighs the bad.

He's glad.


End file.
